


But in Blood

by amaraal



Category: Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Genre: Angst, Coppola's Dracula, Crossover, M/M, vampire Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2013-10-30
Packaged: 2017-12-31 04:02:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 21,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1027012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaraal/pseuds/amaraal





	1. But in Blood - part 1

** But in Blood **

Author: amaraal

Pairing: Holmes/Watson

Rating: PG-13, parts NC-17

Word count: ~ 21.300. 

Warning: Blood, non-con, lots of angst. Mary dies.

Prompt: Holmes as a vampire.

Summary: He committed his life to fight against crime, a brave yet sinful heart, a love longed for but never reached. He succumbed to darkness. It is said, that some die for love. But can love bring back the dead? True love?

A/N: Inspired by a manip pint_of_bovril posted on hw09 and dear tabby’s prompt in 2011, nurturedby enkiduts ‘Dharma’ also and her awesome quick beta read and comments who helped a lot to make this fic readable.  
Please note that there are some links to other author's fics/vids. I bow to them and recommend to visit their sites.

*** indicates POV change, --- no change. We start with Holmes POV. Feedback is highly appreciated and – Happy Helloween!

**Part 1**

***

  
  
***

  
It had been a frosty November night, when I took my enemy with me into the roaring abyss that is Reichenbach Fall. I survived because of my brilliance, my ever restless mind, taking my brother’s aspirator down with me. How exactly I managed to get it out of my pocket in the icy water with clammy hands – I don’t know. But manage I did. 

The professor however did not survive the fall. I landed on top of him, feeling his spine break under me, and then, I saw his lifeless body drifting down the river, his white gloved hands in front, as if searching for the right way.

Mycroft had made sure that provisions had been stored under a big rock, dry clothes, food, and no water. That I had aplenty. 

I walked a mile down river, still chilled to the bone. My  previously wounded shoulder numb, the pain dulled by the coldness. My body demanded rest, sleep, a long, hot bath. 

But I had to make sure, that _he_ was safe. That _they_ were safe. My comrade in arms, my steady and trustworthy companion, the ever reliable Dr. Watson and dear Simza. A proud woman with as stout a heart as any man I have ever known. She would take care of Watson. The thought of him alone, thinking me dead, made my heart clench. The hurt I felt in my heart could in no way be compared to the cold chill in my bones or the pain in my shoulder. 

I reached the Inn where Mycroft and I would meet short time before dawn. The keeper supplied me with a hot soup, which tasted like heaven after all the exhaustion I had endured. The room prepared for me was small, but clean. I fell into bed and was instantly asleep. 

When I woke up, my brother watched me, watched over me as he has done all my life. Good old Mykie. He would die for me and I for him.

Only a few words were spoken. There wasn’t much to be said, anyway. He gave me the passports, money and some documents I would need on my journey east. 

Yes, that was the way I had chosen a long time ago. To the East I would go. Following the blue band of the Donahue river, passing the Carpathians, Siebenburgen, Moldavia the Caspian Sea, the northern regions of Turkey, eastwards towards India, the Himalayan mountains, Tibet and China.

I was determined to find my destiny, my fate, nurture my spiritual needs, forget about civilisation, the cruel, loud, modern times and find solace for  my heart, quiet for my mind, tranquillity of both body and soul. I required a pure source of energy for my still too fast beating heart, a clean, hot desert to come to my senses, leaving everything else behind. 

I embraced my brother, maybe for the last time. He tried to hide his tears, but then he sobbed, kissed me tenderly and said:

“Little brother. Take care of yourself and come back when you have found what you are loning for.” So saying he closed the door behind him, slowly and with great care, as if by doing so to say good bye to the world himself.

He took my old clothes with him to erase all traces of my existence, and I, still tired and exhausted, went back to bed and slept two days straight, - I knew, that Mycroft would spare no effort to calm the citizens, inform the press, advise all departments which had to deal with the recent events and most of all: get Watson back to England and to his wife. Mycroft also would take care of him and Simza, although I wasn’t in the slightest concerned about her well-being.

She was strong, a blade made of the finest steel. She could handle the death of her brother and the uproar of  chasing Moriarty much better than my dear doctor. I was worried more for  him than any other involved in this case, as he would name it later on in one of his stories, the Final Problem. 

\---

Even the longest journey starts with the first step. I was aware that this journey would take away more of my strength, at first. But I had planned easy stages.

I would stay in Budapest for a while, and once arrived safely, telegram Mycroft to send me my violin. I’d had heard of a great musician who would  accept my invitation to meet. A great master, who could help me… 

But no! That was impossible now. A sudden pain in my shoulder brought me back. Even more than the pain reminding me of my handicap, the knowledge of never being able to play a violin again, made me sob and regret stopping Moriarty and his evil plans. 

There would be no more soothing melody drawn from a string instrument by my hands…

A deep and sudden darkness overcame me, heightened by a terrible headache which  made me swoon. I had to sit down for a while, to regain my composure. 

The violin… my first and truest love…

Damn him! Damn Moriarty, Moran and the despicable creatures working in his service! 

If there could only be a weapon, working with deadly precision, like a bullet, but steered by animated force… 

With one shaking hand I wiped my forehead. A deep sigh escaped my lungs  and I stumbled on with life.

Mycroft, my ever present angel, had left me the gypsy clothes, I had worn on our escape from Heilbrun. Looking like a vagabond of some sort, I found a kind hearted fellow, who gave me a ride on his cart until we separated when Zurich came in sight.

The large town, overcrowded with people tending to their business, was a perfect place to hide from the world’s attention. In disguise as a former soldier, - which reminded my aching heart of Watson, dear Watson, who never left my thoughts, - I found a small hotel, gave myself another two weeks rest, bought a ticket to Budapest and departed on New Year’s eve for the Hungarian city.

The ringing and rangling of the train soothed my swirling thoughts. I decided not to think about anything other than my dear doctor, imagining his face, his tender hands, his lips… Watson. I missed him so… 

The pain in my shoulder had eased a little, but the pain in my heart remained undiminished.. Hopefully his wife would bring the joy back  into his life which he so desperately craved  and which I, alas, could not give him. 

I cried myself into a restless sleep. I slept and dreamt of… 

\--- 

_...a cemetery. Large, old, dark. A huge cast iron gate creaking on its hinges, giving the atmosphere the same hopeless, quiet loneliness that all of God’s acres inhabit.  _

_ I took a deep breath and entered the yard. The harsh sound of my footprints in the snow, a crow cawing in the distance, the wind whirling up the powdery white… _

_ Strange forms in a foreign land, feeling cold and deadly on my face.  _

 

I rubbed my hands together, and examined the plot in front of me. Only a few people had attended the funeral. The grave, still fresh, decorated with sparse gifts for the last journey, no flowers, just candles and a little pot that looked like as if filled with wheat, or rice. 

‘Gregarious Levanter’ a small wooden cross announced. Four days too late to meet one of the most talented musicians Europeans  had ever the privilege to hear. 

Not minding the cold, I lifted my hat. I searched my pockets and found the dry sprigs of heather Simza had given me and Mycroft, when we had departed for the fateful ball. I stuck them into the snow, hoping they would bring this great soul some solace, although they hadn’t served me…

I returned to the house whose owner wouldn’t accept any payment for taking me in other than my help to translate some letters, he had to send to England on behalf of one of his clients. A member of the once influential royal family, a Count Dracul, who wanted to claim a house or estate in England, leaving this old, superstitious land behind and heading for a better future in a modern land, so I was told.

The letters were sent to an attorney, Jonathan Harker, London - whom  I’d  heard of; one of my former clients had been acquainted with him. I included in the same post a letter informing Mycroft about the whole affair, although I hadn’t the slightest suspicion that everything wasn’t legal or legitimate.

With previous events still in mind, and knowing so much of criminal intelligence, I paid things like this more attention, than any of my fellows would have done. 

I left on the sixth of January. Yes, my birthday. A year ago my brave doctor had presented me with a [pearl for my watch-chain](http://tinzelda.livejournal.com/7012.html#t309348)… 

I tried not to cry. What a fragile being I had become! I shook my head and with the image of his blue eyes in front of me, marched towards my ultimate destination, wherever I may find it, whatever it may be.

*** 

Cavendish Place. My new home.

After our return from Europe and the events which had claimed so many lives;  our lives were finally  back to normal. Or rather: we were poised to begin a new life, Mary and I. 

After a few days my nightmares became less and less fraught. They diminished with time, but never stopped completely.

That dark day will forever stay in my mind. The day, when my best friend and the bravest and wisest man I have known (and ever had the privilege to know), sacrificed his own life to end that of his worst enemy. 

His fall over the balcony rail… my eyes filled with tears every time I recalled his beloved face in that final moment. The memory never failed to make my heart clench with grief and deep regret that I never had been able to express my deep love for him; other than with snide remarks and criticising his personal hygiene or drug abuse. 

A clear vision appeared in front of me, a vision so vivid, so real, that I reached out to touch it and… was brought back into reality by Mary slamming the door.

She brought a parcel and when I opened it, I found the aspirator inside. A strange looking instrument, to be sure.

Of course I had seen such a thing before, but then…

“Mary!” I shouted and sprang up to find out who had brought the parcel and when.

But she shrugged, saying:

“Don’t worry, dear. That’s certainly one of Mycroft’s eccentric antics. The man is certifiably mad! There is no way it could be a sign that his brother is still alive.”

She touched my cheek tenderly and left me standing in the parlour, the aspirator still in hand. I shook my head, took a deep breath, calling myself a fool.

The thought Holmes could be alive had in fact never my mind, but then… what if he was alive?

Holmes still alive? _Could_ he be alive? That fall had been fatal—there was no possibility of his having survived.

When I returned to my desk and manuscripts I found a mysterious question mark set behind the last two words of my latest novel. ‘The End _?_ ’ it now read.

I blinked in disbelief. How was that possible? My mind was racing. A stranger playing a cruel game with me? No. How could he have entered the house or, this room with Gladstone guarding the place?

No. Impossible. Mary, maybe. Or I myself. When I had left the desk… accidentally! Of course. I sighed. 

I saw his face again. He smiled, the toothy smile I had always adored.  

To be honest - I always saw him smiling; every time I closed my eyes I saw his beloved face again.

So many things I hadn’t done, had missed  the opportunity to do! Going to the opera with him, or to the Royal, his favourite. He in his finest dinner jacket, shaved, hair slicked back and with the gesture and air of a free spirit, a cosmopolite, a bohemian.

He, London’s only consulting detective… I should have taken his hand—such a simple gesture -  and confessed my feelings, my love!

“How I miss you Holmes…” I whispered and a tear found its way down my cheek. I clenched my teeth.

‘You have Mary now, foolish heart. Be still! Stop torturing me!’

But I was devastated.

‘Give yourself time. Time will heal this wound. Let it rest. Work! Find a new task. Forget him!’ 

But I knew I would never be able to forget him.

I placed myself behind the desk, the typewriter in front of me and took the sheet out.  
A new sheet, a new beginning…   
…but not a single word appeared on the white paper for a long time.

*** 

The strong and icy wind hit my face like the draft of a passing train. I had travelled many miles determined to reach Lhasa. Half a year had passed, yet my mind was still troubled.

It had calmed somewhatduring the long journey, through Vienna, Bucharest and the still green valleys of Moldavia; thence onward to the Caspian Sea. From there to the north, Odessa it was, Astrakhan, the Baical- and Astrachs lake, and now I was at the foot of the great Himalayan mountains. 

My horse stood still, not moving a muscle. 

Yes, a horse. A small, but sturdy steed of Mongolian stock, whose brown fur showed bald spots. She was old, but steadfast. She seemed to know the way, and so I let her carry me.

For miles and miles I sat slumped on her back, while she trotted along. I rested where she stopped, took my time; my thoughts still at Reichenbach, still with _him_ ; my brother and all the people I’d left behind. 

I had sent several short letters, providing Mycroft with only enough information about my whereabouts and well-being to reassure him.

I was using the identity of a Norwegian scientist, Sigerson, which had served me well so far on my journey.

Of course dear Mykie couldn’t answer me; I’d left towns and villages as quickly as I had reached them. 

Now I followed the old Nomad routes. The silk road, which had brought so many goods from the Eastern world to the West; a route established in ancient  times when London was still a muddy place deep in the woods. 

The wound I hardly felt anymore perhaps because I avoided using my right arm very much. I’d lost a considerable amount of weight, but I felt almost light hearted, with a destination ahead and a dark past behind me. 

My curiosity was satisfied by many new and beautiful things: talks by  roadside fires, new tastes, new colours and the great landscape that changed from day to day, from hour to hour. 

I was almost happy, except for the fact, that my dear Watson wasn’t at my side. How I longed to see him, to hear his voice, gaze upon his beloved face, observe his blue eyes sparkling with joy again!

But I was dead, and he with… Mary! Thinking of her stabbed at my heart  like dagger. Eery time I remembered the fact, that she had finally taken him… just as she’d declared she would the night of our first meeting.

Tossing her from that train hadn’t been very gentlemanly, - but it had saved her life. What more can a gentleman do for a lady?

Watson’s weight upon me after that fateful action was another dagger-like memory. I tried not to think of how furious he had been, how angry… and strong. 

What if… I shook my head. It was futile to speculate about things that had happened in the past. 

I must look forward and reach the monastery at Lhasa. There I hoped to find release from my burden, a completion of my soul and rest for my wildly beating heart. 

*** 

I hadn’t calculated that living in a marriage with a woman I loved could be other than a life of peace, happiness and joy. Who would have thought, that the woman who was now my wife had a tongue sharp as a razor blade? 

First we lived in harmony, then small, mundane things led to escalating incidents, and frequent clashes of personality. At a certain point I had enough. I took my hat, cloak, another of her itchy woolen scarves, and went to the Punchbowl. 

Night had fallen when I arrived there, the familiar smell and atmosphere made me gasp, compelled but also relieved. It felt like coming home.

I placed bets; I drank; I drank more and left the Punchbowl with my pockets empty, my mind and body swaying.

That I told the driver to deliver me to 221B Baker Street I blamed on my befuddled brain, but when the carriage stopped in front of that too familiar front steps I nearly sobbed. 

I searched my pockets, found a key, scratched at the lock and… the door opened. Mrs. Hudson, in hood and nightgown looked at me with an expression of both disbelief and undisguised joy at  seeing me again.

“Dr Watson? What are you doing here? Have you got lost? Come in, come in. The night is cold.”

She scolded me a bit for being obviously drunk, but I laughed at her and said  things I couldn’t remember when morning came. I found myself led up the seventeen stairs and put into bed where I immediately fell asleep.  

Oh – what a disastrous morning followed this night. I had the headache of a lifetime, and while I waited for Mary and the carriage to arrive, I sat in my old arm chair and felt like the most unlucky soul in the world.

I had slept in Holmes’ bed. The pillow so soft and bearing traces of his scent had been like another blanket around me and, had evoked the most erotic dreams I’d had for a long time.

When I came to my senses again and I realized, what had happened…: the struggle with Mary, leaving the house, slamming the door, the Punchbowl, my joy at being back in the realm of my old life, my relief at being there; …I felt ashamed. I knew - I should feel regret and apologize to Mary: …a thing I had never done, when I had lived here with Holmes… 

A sudden burst of longing overcame me, my heart thundered in my ears, my eyes filled yet again with tears. 

After such a long time I thought I had overcome my grief, my loss – but no. The scar would never really heal. I had the strange feeling, it would be my death one day, too.

O Holmes... I still miss you so…

\---

Mary’s voice brought me cruelly back to reality. She gave Mrs Hudson the money she had laid out for the carriage ride,and called my name.

“John? It’s me. Let us go back home and talk.” 

I sighed, grabbed my stick, cloak and hat - the scarf I had lost somewhere during the night, - and with heavy steps went downstairs, avoiding her sharp gaze. 

“Thank you, Mrs Hudson.” I said, without looking at my wife. She pressed my hand with empathy, and bid me and Mary a good day.

We spoke no word on our way home.

*** 

_ Kuku-nor _ , glorious town of Chinese splendour and Asian culture. It was here, where the Mongolian, Chinese and Tibetan cultures met. To the north it would have been another three or four weeks to reach the realm of the Russian emperor, to the east lay _Peking_ , but I headed south. 

A ship sailing the _Hoang-ho_ brought me to _Singan_. I stayed a few days to learn a bit more of the language, but I found no resemblance to the dialect the men on the boat had used. Every few miles the language seemed to change. It bore more consonants in the north; the southern tongue sounded more like singing.

I made detailed notes about it, I also wrote down the signs they used as an alphabet. At least these seemed to be universal; everywhere I went the merchants understood the scribbling I showed them, providing me with food and a beautiful opium pipe. 

Yes, that old habit had finally made its way back into my life. The opium of China tasted different from that exported to the western civilisation. I did not complain. It made the pain in my shoulder much more bearable, not to speak of the wound in my heart.

From _Singan_ on I travelled by foot. The trusty steed I had set free, when I boarded the small ship. She looked back at me as though bidding me farewell, and it almost seemed, that she was glad to have fulfilled her task.

So many foreign gods surrounded me now. I hoped to find the right one to ease the pain I still felt.

***

It was a stormy afternoon, when Mary and I came back from the opera, and I heard her coughing for the first time. We had come to terms, finally, about my gambling habits, my staying out late and her tendency to keep the leash short. Expensive crystal vases had been destroyed in the process, but then I worked harder and much more than I should have. 

I tended to my own devices, visited old army comrades, went to the Punchbowl and saw Mrs Hudson at Baker Street on a regular basis. I asked her, why she hadn’t accepted new tenants and she told me that Mycroft Holmes still paid the rent in order to keep everything in place as a remembrance for his beloved little brother.

“Then part of your house is a memorial, now?” I was puzzled to learn that Mycroft never came here, nor had he sent someone to take care of the things his brother had left behind. 

“Dr Watson, it is _so_ good to see you. You bring a little joy into my life. Feel free to use your old room whenever you are in need of a place to hide. And no, Mycroft Holmes never set foot into this house, - well just once, when he retrieved his brother’s violin…”

Ah, the violin. It pained me to think that Holmes would never to play his violin again. At the same moment my breath hitched, as memories flooded my mind of his beloved form falling into the abyss, consumed by the thunderous water. 

“I loved to hear him play…” She said as though in reverie. She gave me a conspiratorial smile, and I smiled back at her. I knew we both were thinking of the individual who had inspired so much distress and uneasiness, but  had also been the cause of much joy and happiness.

“I must confess,” she said, “that I miss him dearly.” 

I took her hand in mine and together we sat, grieving over our long lost friend. 

When I got home I felt a bit more at ease knowing that I had a friend out there, a place where I was welcome and could be at peace.

\---   
  



	2. But in Blood - part 2

**Part 2**

I remembered our night in Brighton.  
  
How we’d got there?

Spontaneously.

Holmes and I had followed a couple of villains, two men renowned for the brutality with which they robbed elderly men living alone. They were also blackmailers and we followed them by train, ending up in Brighton. They led us to several establishments I didn’t know existed. First to a hotel, where we also checked in, then into town, and later the outer districts and a certain unsavoury establishment.

Outside the house was ordinary, but inside: a huge ballroom, velvet draperies, lush carpets. Couples sat on settees and bedlike sofas, young servants were buzzing around  small tables.

The ringing of  crystal glasses, the hiss whispered words; the smell, sweet and somewhat heavy, made me dizzy. Holmes took my arm and we descended into that comfortable modern Sodom. 

I thought I remembered a few women, but now I knew – there had been no women at all.

An orchestra, well hidden behind plants and curtains, played Strauss, “Vienna Blood”. When our quarry appeared again, Holmes took my hand and showed me how to dance. I followed his lead, as I always did, but this time… 

He was so near, still scanning the room, when some strange kind of flower blossomed in my heart that night, a dark forbidden flower, small but of exceptional beauty. 

He saw it, he knew, he always did, and I found his lips too enticing to go unnoticed, his eyes shining, fixed on mine. We danced, and we forgot the reason why we had come, but we knew now who we really were…

“Watson,” he said, and touched my cheek and temples, and I smiled down on him, saw my smile mirrored on his face. And then - I kissed him. It was as simple as that. 

I can still feel his lips on mine; quivering, soft, moist, and the taste of him… Holmes! 

We danced a long time, bodies aligned, close, oh so close, in perfect harmony. I whispered his name into his mouth, I savoured his breath. He was shaking and in my arms he felt fragile, but I knew he was strong.

He showed me his strength, when we closed the door to our room behind us.

We were drunk, both from too much wine and our desire for each other. We undressed each other slowly, delayed by kisses and touches. Could we have stopped there and then? I doubt it. Our hearts led us, our souls on fire as were our loins.

He laid me on my back and then… o sweet sin, temptation! He knew what he did, what he had to do, I guided his hands, he held my heart, my love for him overwhelmed me. I came all over my chest, he rubbed it into my skin just to lick it off of me again with tenderness and much care.

Never had I felt so complete, so loved, so wanted. I shivered from exhaustion, he laughed, a happy, little laugh. I tussled his hair, kissed him, kissed my Holmes, my man, my love… 

When I came a second time he growled deep in his throat and spent his seed in my hand. I watched him sleep that night. A dark form, cradled in my arms, he was smiling, and I touched his face, his lips. My dear friend. He was happy, back then, as was I.

Holmes! Come back to me!

*** 

It is odd that we can’t escape our emotions. Even here, at the roof of the world, through the haze I saw him, I called out his name. My only thought was of him. Watson. My dear Watson. I had tried to avoid thinking of him, tried to erase every memory. But now, here in a small room with walls made of clay, a small window and wind torn roof, suddenly, that night was there again. Our night in Brighton. 

We had followed two men, one a former teacher, the other a servant. They were not only burglars and blackmailers but also lovers. Maybe because of that I had to pursue them.

We tried to stop them, a danger to their own kind, but also my Watson and me. It wasn’t my intent to follow them that far, but my dear doctor insisted, and so we ended up in Brighton. We took up residence at the same hotel, followed them into depravity. To a house I had never thought to enter together with Watson.  
He was puzzled at first, but blended in perfectly when we had to pretend to be participants of the circle holding court here. Why my thoughts strayed to Mycroft at that moment I couldn’t fathom. He would have loved it, I’m sure.

When the music set in, the couple was passing by us, and so I took the next step: I clasped Watson’s hand and we danced. He followed my lead and it was then, for the first time in my life I lost track of my prey. I was held spellbound by his blue eyes which were sparkling with amusement at the ridiculousness of our situation, or so it seemed.

And I remember the moment when this notion was replaced by another feeling, I could see his love for me unfolding its wings, the moment when he became aware that he loved me. I lowered my shields too, and we danced, and we knew, and we were one - perfect harmony.

He yielded to me without any resistance, welcomed my ministrations to his body, a body I knew so well, a body I desired, that I had longed for so many times. No one had ever taught me, I did what seemed natural, and when he came I savoured his essence, his taste, his smell, his warm body squirming under my hands. My beautiful Watson. You had been so open, trusting me so completely!

My eyes filled with tears when I realized how far away my beloved was. 

Reichenbach. The fall.  His dear face... The crack in my heart widened. I wept. 

*** 

She tried to hide it as best as she could. But after six months of constantly increasing coughing she became weaker and weaker by the day, more fragile,  pale as a ghost.

I should have known that I was going to lose her. I was a doctor, but to my wife slowly dying I was blind. It took over a year until I realized that there was not much time left, and death would tear us apart.

She stayed in bed constantly, too weak to attend to everyday life. I left a nurse and Gladstone at her side, and as difficult as it is to confess – threw myself into work even harder. 

Then something unexpected happened.

*** 

Twelve months had passed since I’d left Reichenbach more dead than alive when I finally entered the monastery at Lhasa. The monastery was set up high on a mountain, and when I saw it, the sun was already setting, giving it a divine atmosphere, a golden hue as if this place had been created by the Gods themselves. 

But this I could not perceive, because my sight had been shattered, my body teetered on the brink of  life and death.

I had been unprepared, exhausted from too long a journey, less food and drowning in a dark mood, all my joints aching from long absent rest, fool that I was…

Fortunately they found me not far away and brought me to the divine place. I hardly remember anything. I heard voices, whispering in a strange tongue, two broad warm hands spending comfort, another voice, penetrating my cocoon built by a high fever, shaking limbs and restless thoughts of Watson. 

Did I whisper his name? O my beloved! I wanted to leave the earth, wanted to leave my tattered body behind ~~,~~ and join with him, with him, my one and only.  
But the voice commanded me.

“There is nothing here for you. Return to your friend.” It said, and I obeyed. 

Reluctantly I returned back to life which took me several weeks. Every breath a torture, every move a force of will.

“There is nothing here for you. Return to your friend,” The head lama said gently to me, and I regarded him, still in pain and full of dread.

“I left to give him his life. A clean break is always best,” came my thready reply, as I struggled  for breath in the thin air.

“In leaving you upset the balance. Only by returning can it be restored. You will neither of you know peace otherwise.”

I nodded, for I knew him to be a wise man. Nothing else in this life - only my return to England and Watson - would ever make me complete again.

The monks gathered at the gate, watching me moving off into the distance.

“Is it his karma to wander?” They asked the head lama as their strange guest was lost to their sight.

“No. His wandering must end, he must return to his other half. It is his dharma –  – but not in the sense that Buddha teaches us – but that which comes to us in the original meaning of the word – the natural order of things.  
Disaster always follows when we deny our essential natures. You would do well to remember that, young ones.”

And so saying they returned into the peaceful building to fulfil their own karma.

\---

 

 

A fast drifting fog, a moon hiding behind dark clouds. I followed the near invisible path down the slope into India. _Delhi_ was my next target; I hoped to reach it within two weeks. 

Most legs of my journey I spent on boats, most of the vessels not worthy of the name. I dressed as a peasant, my skin sun burnt, a great straw hat pulled down to  shield my eyes.  
I looked upon the wonders, the daily miracles, spread out before me.

In my bag I still had my disguise, as I used to call it. White linen breeches, a long coat, a helmet and a notebook. I was split in half: Sigerson, explorer, naturalist, geologist, and yes I admit it, even a kind of humanistic research was in the game too. Sigerson took things as they were, but Holmes… 

For as much as I wished my mind to be calm and fixed to one single point, whatever that point might be, it was as fast as it always had been at moving through several topics at the same time. 

I tried to focus on one thing – but it was like living in a floating world. Like sun’s rays flittering through the branches of alley trees when passed under quickly. One instant everything was bright and clear and golden, the next all was shadows and dust. 

My nerves were still shattered, but my eyesight was sharp as was my hearing. My appetite had returned, but that iota of food I needed was of little concern to me.

I felt much better now. The cold and heat in combination had healed my body. My dear Watson would have scolded me for my obvious loss of weight, but then – what else had I been, back then, but  a floating, lifeless body? A spirit in a surreal world.

How I missed my dear man. I lit another pipe and in the sweet scent of the opium I dreamt…

I dreamt…

*** 

I was dreaming. Again. The same dream over and over and over again.

I dreamt of Holmes and Mary… My dear wife. I pitied her, I did my best to distract her from her dreadful state, she was a silent patient, always hopeful, always smiling at me when I brought her a bowl of soup or sat evening after evening reading to her favourite parts of her most beloved books.

I even read one of my stories about Holmes and then it was she who had to soothe me over the loss of my best friend. I sat, crouched at the bedside, my head in her lap, her hands stroking my hair. 

I wept, for the three of us. Holmes, who was dead, Mary who soon would be and I… I… 

It started three months after the question mark incident. I saw Holmes. I saw him in the corner of my eye, but when I looked he was gone. For months this happened again and again.

Mostly it happened when I sat in front of my typewriter, hacking out all the memories of him and me into haptic form.

Black ink on white paper. 

My intention was to exorcise all of it; banish the memories to reams of paper, to a book to be put on a shelf and forgotten.

…But my mind was always with him. The more I struggled to be free of him, the more my heart told me a different thing. Every beat bore his name. ‘Holmes’, it said and ‘Holmes, Holmes, Holmes’, or like a lullaby it called out for him: Holmes come back, Holmes come back, Holmes come back...

…a breeze stirred behind me, I flung myself around just to discover… empty space and the night too far gone already to go to bed and sleep. Sleep often eluded me and I was glad. Without sleep there are no dreams…

Brighton… the night as gentle as Holmes caressing my face. We were far from home, far from every harm. I held him in my arms and he sighed.

“So contemplative, Holmes? What ails you?”

“Thinking, John. Inevitabilities, rumours, reputation… Nothing lasts forever.”

“What about love, Holmes?”

“No, not even love...”

“What about true love?”

“Have you ever found such a love, John?”

“I think, I have…”

Closing his eyes, a shy smile appeared on his handsome face. Holmes, tracing my features with one finger, frowned.

“No, nothing lasts forever. But as long as it lasts, I will enjoy it. John…”

And so did I.

“Real love lasts forever. I love you.”

More kisses, tender at first, than desperate. Two souls breathing as one. A bond not in blood, but in spirit. 

We left the next morning, and I had sworn to myself never, ever to return to Brighton again!

***   



	3. But in Blood - part 3

**Part 3**

I was dreaming of my one true love. Yes, I distracted myself collecting plants and insects, mapping the terrain I was allowed to roam so freely.

  
No duties, just my frail state of mind, a monthly report to Mycroft, my beloved, poor, kind-hearted brother. I missed him, I missed London. But most and for all…

I’D got lost in memories too often. They paled the longer my journey went on, but they never faded completely.  It was as if a fine silver thread bound my soul to that of my dear Watson.

I shook my head and watched the crowd, seeing everything, and observing everything. I couldn’t block the impressions or ban them from my memory. I saw everything, that old familiar curse.

I chartered a boat and followed the great river called the Ganges, _Ganga_ as _she_ is called in India. A broad, gently flowing river, brown and dull, meandering like a great torpid snake through a beautiful landscape filled with deafening noise only in the great cities I where took lodging for several days. _Benares, Laknan, Delhi_ and then finally _Peshawar,_ near the border to Afghanistan. 

As strange as a foreign land might be on first glance, once you are accustomed to, familiar with the food, scents and daily routines you start to settle in confidently. All the people surrounding me, the _brahmas_ , the peasants, women dressed in white and coloured _saris_ , children looking the same as the street Arabs in London, dirty but cajoling happily over a won match of what ever game they played. 

Ah, India. A mixture of raw beauty and the fine scents of _patchouli_ , orchids, vanilla and cinnamon. Curry in big hat shaped piles were offered at the markets, every corner offered a new temptation. 

I visited _Ashrams_. I washed my face and body in the _Ganga_ as the Indians did. I prayed to unknown gods, knowing that only one thing could ever make me whole again… 

During the night, filled with sounds of both uncommon and alluring harmonies I laid on my back, my opium-filled pipe between my teeth. Again I drifted off – back home, to England, and Baker Street…  

I decided to go downstream on the _Indus,_ another of those formidable rivers made to roam great distances at a rather lazy speed. It would take its time. But I had too much time on my hands anyway.

I would cross the border to Afghanistan where the _Indus_ turned westward, then to the south again to join the Arabic Sea at _Karachi_. Via _Kelat_ and _Quetta_ I would turn to the heart of Afghanistan, passing by _Kandahar_ and then, then… 

Tears were running down my face when I thought of _Maiwand_ and my beloved Watson… I could feel the scar on his shoulder under my fingertips. My brave soldier. How much he had suffered then, and how much he had to suffer even now – on my account!

Maybe I would find the answer there! In the hot desert sand, digging through the remnants of the unfortunate brigade that had fought so bravely and had been defeated so thoroughly! 

I packed my bundle and left no trace of my existence behind.

*** 

She felt fragile, her bones delicate like a bird’s when she had taken my arm and we made a slow, short walk through a nearby park. I thought she would recover, and for several weeks she seemed to do so.

But the next evening, when I returned home from a stressful day in my practice she lay in bed, the covers up to her chin, shivering and as pale as a ghost. 

“Mary!” In an instant I was by her side. She took my hand in hers and smiled, a feeble attempt to assure me that everything was fine with her, that I needn’t worry. But I was afraid. 

Kissing her white fingers I sat by her side and patiently waited until she was peacefully sleeping.

I deceived myself, her sleep wasn’t peaceful at all. She could hardly breathe, her head lolled from side to side and she whispered inaudibly to whatever phantoms were haunting her. 

And then… a shadow was moving! There behind the curtain! I was up in a moment and ripped it aside – nothing. ‘Just a breeze,’ I thought. And nothing more happened during the night. 

I left a candle burning. At some point I must have fallen asleep. The dreams that came swept over me in gigantic waves. I drowned in harsh, chaotic noise, laughter, smoke in the air, Holmes playing the violin in an almost devilish manner.

His hair was wild, he looked like a beggar. But his playing was magnificent, powerful, overwhelming. I reached out for him, I could see my own claw-like fingers… with a start I woke up again! 

The sheets were drenched in sweat, both Mary’s and mine.

I climbed out of bed and called our maid. We changed the sheets, I brought Mary to the settee in my examining room and there I held her in my arms like a mother with a child, rocking her gently, singing to her… 

Mary, o Mary, my dearest heart! What have I done to you? ‘You would have been happier without me,’ I thought and a deep and dark melancholy wrapped its heavy cloak around my shivering frame. 

The next three days I stayed at home with my wife our servants surrounding us. Soon it would be over. 

But there was no relief in this knowledge. Just grief and a mind numbing void. 

***

 

Tuesday 27 July 1880 was the British nightmare, an Afghan lesson that had been learned, but will never be forgotten. The Second Anglo-Afghan War, 3,500 miles from home, in the dried out nullahs, and in the 60-degree temperatures, under the sound of Armstrong cannon versus Armstrong cannon, and the Martini Henry breech-loader and its bayonet versus the sharp crack of the jezail and the primitive but deadly Afghan 'Khyber' knife and tulwar sword it had been that my dear Watson suffered. 

The British Government in 1878 wanted to stabilise Afghanistan in order to prevent danger to their own territories. To achieve this goal they used military intervention, not to rule themselves, but to make space for a homegrown government that would be sympathetic to British needs. The soldiers who worked for their shilling or rupee were of an international alliance too, though under somewhat different circumstances, it has to be said, as both coins bore the head of Empress Victoria. Shoulder to shoulder with the Berkshire Tommy, was the Baloch sepoy, the Muslim sowar, and the Hindu bugler.

On 27th July 1880, they all stood together, exposed on an open arid plain, while an army estimated at between 10,000 to 20,000 Afghan warriors and tribesmen advanced, firing their artillery pieces with such accuracy that a rumour quickly spread among the Anglo-Indian force that Russian commanders must be present.

And now I sat there, in the same dry, open arid plain, on my knees, every crevice filled with fine sand, and I was sad. Sad for my country, sad for the people who had lost their lives, sad for those who still lived here. 

I sighed, my eyes stinging from the dry heat and near tears, and  I was glad too. If he hadn’t been wounded, back then, we would never have met.

_ With a drop of my sweetheart's blood, _  
_ Shed in defence of the Motherland, _  
_ Will I put a beauty spot on my forehead, _  
_ Such as would put to shame the rose in the garden[1] _  
_. _  
So I raised my head, knees aching, rising on shaky legs, and went back, through the sun and the heat. With a heavy heart I climbed atop my camel, it roared when I forced it up.  
On his back, lulled by the beasts ship-like swaying trot I filled another pipe, and soon in a trance-like state I returned to _Kandahar_.

\--- 

Living without Watson was like walking with thorns in my side. Several days I dwelt in an almost catatonic state. A dimly lit room held the sun outside, a sun too bright for my weary eyes. I closed them, tired, fully aware that, if I fell asleep I might never want to wake up again.

_ ‘Holmes. Come back to me!’  _

Watson? Was that you? Watson, my dear Watson!

With shaking limbs I lay there, staring at the ceiling, then forced myself up from the hard ground, where my exhausted body had found uneasy rest for a few hours. 

‘Watson,’ I thought, ‘Where are thou?’ 

_ ‘Holmes. Holmes come back.’ _

My dear man needed me. I was up in a minute and ready to go in half the time. Where was my money? The sack with my belongings. A small one, stuffed with the few things I possessed. A postcard fell out. 

  
The tomb of Nizamudin at _Delhi_. It would reach Mycroft in a month, maybe two, along with another Sigerson report and a lock of my hair in a silver locket, engraved with a rose on one side.

I had to return! Europe, the old continent. I stormed out of the room and the servants I had hired couldn’t understand my rage when they balked at my commands to leave on the spot.

‘ _Hurry, fetch the camels! We will depart this place as soon as possible!’_ I yelled, and they fled like a bunch of chickens, afraid I would rip their heads off.

I would have done! I was angry. Angry at myself, angry to return to England, angry with my brother. 

He had mentioned Jonathan Harker in one of his latest letters.

 

We took a boat to the north, up the _Hilmand_ river, passing _Maiwand_. We had to go upstream where, a week later in the evening hours we reached _Chagcharán_ , a small, urban village, full of dust and camel dung.   
I stayed for a day and a night, then a guide brought me up the _Koh-e-baba_ , the soft hills in the north of this beautiful, but dry land. From there we followed the _Hari Rud_ , another river, and I set foot into _Herat_ on the twelve of July 1895 almost three years after I had ‘perished’ from this world on my own account. 

The riverbanks were muddy and I was glad to have chosen the best time of year to travel through Afghanistan. It would be autumn before I would be back in England.

As much as I longed to see my home country again, God had set a great deal of rock, stone and water between me and my final destination.

I bent down and took a handful of the brown mud. It looked rich and smelled of grass and faintly metallic. I straightened my back, pulled in a deep breath which filled my lungs with the moist, warm air surrounding me. 

The humidity of this place was heavy, not unlike a wet sheet. 

No one would recognize me here, I thought. Here it was common that the men hid their faces behind a cotton veil a custom I planned to adopt. Flies and gnats had accompanied us on our journey for a very long time. I liked the desert better. It was clean. 

\--- 

Persia! Glorious country, gold, silver, fine leather works, silk, almonds and dates (the best to be found in the orient). I closed my eyes and inhaled all those formidable scents, a unique mixture of spices, perfumes and putrefaction. 

_ Mesched, Isfahan _ and other cities I had visited earlier in my life. Back then, it had been to solve the case of the Persian ambassador…  
That had been another life entirely.

I had brought a pair of slippers with me back to England, part of my fee for my service to the diplomat. A fine pair of slippers it had been with its soles made of the finest sheep leather, a smooth silky top formed to a curly, pointy toe, embroidered with golden threads and an inlay of several minor gems. 

One I had hung near the mantelpiece in my bedroom, the other at the same place in the parlour, where it caused many humorous glances from our… the visitors consulting me. 

I had to hurry. Something told me to hurry.

A month later I left  _ Aleppo _ , another six weeks to face  _ Constantinople _ , a symbol for my inner state. A great boisterous city with a cleft in the middle. A cleft running through the body, but not the heart. I noticed the Babylonian mixture of languages from all over the Orient, the beautiful gardens, the mosques, glittering in their ornaments of tiles and golden roofs, crowned by a half moon reflecting the sun.

The scent was different. Here was the Mediterranean Sea, wind from the north carried the faint fragrances of pine woods and flowers with it. 

There was also dust and  too much  manure on the streets which rendered them unpleasant. Oriental idleness ruled the outer districts, where I vanished into the shadows of small passages, hardly wider than my own girth. 

I left after a week, supplied with a new outfit, resembling my old self once more ~~again~~. Critically ~~I studied,~~ I ~~observed~~ studied myself in the mirror.

I was thin as a rail, my skin bronze and my hair had greyed at the temples. Unkempt it looked like Beethoven’s, the famous composer, in his later years. 

I combed my hair, oil tamed it, I’d even found tinted spectacles to hide my bloodshot eyes. The watch chain on my vest secured my old pocket watch still showing the time when the clockwork had stopped, a reminder of my former, happier life. It fit nicely into its pocket. 

Deep in thought I let the chain run through my fingers, weighing the small pearl in my hand. I stood for a while, contemplating my old life, not daring to think of a future that had already been lost once in the past. 

Tears sprang into my eyes, I cringed and dropped to my knees on the floor. _‘Forgive me, father, for I have sinned…’_

“Watson!” I cried aloud, hardly knowing that I did so.

In a moment of crystalline transparency I knew I had lost him.

***

  


 

 

 

* * *

  
[1] Poem written by Malaia, a Persian woman who had lost her beloved during that war.

  



	4. But in Blood - part 4

**Part 4**

_ ‘Watson!’ _

I awoke startled, my heartbeat wild and fast.  
There it was again. It happened again. _He_ called out for me.  
He, my poor, dear friend. 

  
“Holmes,” I whispered. I stood up, the chill air surrounding me, clearing  my head. 

I gathered my - Holmes’ - bath-robe, slung the belt around my waist. With only one slipper on my foot I stumbled from the guest bedroom into the master bedroom where Mary slept alone watched over by a nurse. She had long since refused to sleep together with me in one bed.

“John,” she had spoken ever so softly, “it is alright, my darling. I don’t want to disturb your sleep, John…” 

She was very weak now, coughing up blood she tried to hide in towels I found under the bed. I had agreed to that arrangement, for I badly needed rest too. 

When I entered the room she was deeply asleep. The nurse, on a nearby settee, slumbered too. I stood for several minutes, engraving this peaceful image into my memory, a reminder of my dear wife that I would keep forever in my heart.

I returned to my own bed after tenderly stroking her beloved face. I didn’t want her to die. I wanted her alive, warm and rosy by my side! I kissed her forehead, tucked the sheets around her and left reluctantly, my heart breaking.

_ ‘Watson!’ _

Again his voice calling my name, his poor soul wandering the great plains of endless darkness alone, so alone... 

“Holmes…” Alone between the cold linen sheets I sobbed, cradling the pillow in my arms, imagining it to be him, his sinewy always too thin body…

_ ‘Forgive me Mary, for I have sinned.’  _ It was then and there that I realized I had lost him. 

 

*** 

 

On the 16th of November I set foot on the European continent again. My voyage led me from Constantinople to Prague. Crossing the border into Transylvania I turned towards Bucharest, passing the Vltava on a stormy night. In ice and snow I had left my old life behind me – and now I returned to it the same way.

Gyorgi, my guide, told me that there where gypsies around, a winter camp where we could find shelter, a warm meal and a place to sleep.

“They are friendly people. But they are not used to big crowds. They are never in big cities. They love nature. So forest we go.” 

I nodded and he led me to a copse of old oak and beech trees near a brook in a soft snow filled bowl, shaped like a big open hand. 

They were Roma, or Rom as they call themselves. First they looked at me suspiciously, but then their leader gave a sign and the women and children went back into their tents, sat down again around a big fire, where a great kettle steamed up a delicious smell. 

I was tired to the bone. I accepted a small wooden bowl with hot soup. The strong taste bit my tongue, but I was too hungry to give it second thought.

I ate, drank some wine, Gyorgi showed me a place under one of the wooden carts, stuffed with hay as shelter from the wind and snow. The sun had set, a red gleam fading into orange, then yellow announced the coming of night. I shed my wet clothes, shirt and trousers, boots, wrapped myself in a large, woollen cloak and fell asleep immediately. 

 

  
“Do you think we can trust him, pral?”

“Yes, phen. An odd light shines in him. But we can trust him.” 

Night settled slowly, the noise faded into the murmuring of the brook nearby. An owl hooted, a dog barked in the distance. Here was peace, finally. 

\--- 

I woke the next morning stiff and hungry. A shave would be in order. I yawned and stretched like a cat.

“Bukaljan li?” I turned my head into the direction from where the female voice had come, and looking into beautiful dark brown eyes I nodded.

I was hungry like a bear and soon I sat by a fire dressed in clothes someone had handed me, slurping hot broth. I thoughtfully ~~,~~ chewed on hard bread, my brain juggling with and sorting out all the impressions laid before my eyes.

Ten or more tents created a circle, horses between them and the carts with big wheels standing nearby, children, dirty but laughing, were chasing each oblivious to the cold. 

The men and women sitting around the fire looked at me but never stared directly. Gyorgi smiled at me. Obviously this was his clan, his family whom  he had missed.

Two children, one in his lap, the other at his feet, were tuggging at his vest buttons and reaching for the amulets dangling from his neck. He seemed to be happy at last. 

“Katar san tu?” A woman, their leader so it seemed, asked me in a husky voice. I searched Gyorgi’s eyes.

“Where are you from?” He translated.

“Persia,” I said, and he laughed.   
“No, you are not. A blind fish can see that you are English. And don’t tell me, I do know that because I speak your languish.”  
“Language.”  
“Language.“ He laughed again, his teeth flashing in the morning light.

I told them everything, my ‘death’ at Reichenbach Falls, my journey through the Balkan countries, Russia, Mongolia, China, my visit and stay at _Lhasa_ , India, Persia, Afghanistan.  
Choking on my own words I told them about _Maiwand_ , the hot desert air, the sand, my grief over my lost… dear Watson. I didn’t mention him directly, didn’t utter his name, but they sensed my sadness, my grief, the void inside - my broken heart. 

“There is a way.” The Phuri Daj spoke with a deep, husky voice, her accent giving her speech a tranquil quality.   
“You can go back, make your peace with that… other soul… finding your own peace, then…”   
“How?” I cried.   
“Go back to where you come from. Your own soil, your blood will help you.” 

Gyorgi flashed me another smile. 

“But… how?” I was lost. They irritated me. My vision blurred, my legs betrayed me. There I was – in a foreign country, surrounded by foreign people. Strangers they were and would ever be.

She was right. I couldn’t stay. 

The sky came down on me, darkness took me, losing consciousness my last thought was _Watson._

*** 

Mary was dying.

I fled to Baker Street and Mrs Hudson’s soothing presence. She was my mother hen now as I had been for Holmes back then. She offered me chicken soup and I gladly took it.

I had tended to my patients longer than expected. Yes, I had tried in vain to flee from my wife and her unavoidable passing. The thought made my heart race, tore it apart. 

I slept in Holmes’ bed that night. The scent was still there. Tobacco, soap, a trace of lime, the strong scent of musk, sweat and his essence, the essence of life… 

Unbidden visions of our night at Brighton flashed before my eyes. I moaned, I was hard, my hand on my prick, a steady rhythm, a tight grip…

“Hooolmessss…” A low rumble in my throat when I came all over my stomach, both crying and laughing. Madness. It was sheer madness. I wanted him back! Biting the pillow my teeth painfully clenched, hands balled into fists, I stifled my cries and sobbed, burying my nose in his scent. I saw his large, brown eyes again, closing, him, falling – and this time I fell with him.

Darkness felt rather warm this time.

***   


  


  



	5. But in Blood - part 5

**Part 5**

There was music. Sarasate playing the violin like the devil himself. 

  
But Sarasate could not be here. Where was I? I followed the sweet rhythm. A march, then a call, _follow me_ , it said, _follow my lead_. In trance I followed, the notes like rainbow coloured threads in the air. 

Was I dreaming? I saw Watson. He slept in a huge bed, the sheets wrapped tightly around himself. It was my bed. He was in distress. I stumbled over a root, I opened my eyes.

The forest, dark and frightening in front of me. I shivered. At the foot of an old oak, whose branches like gnarled hands sheltered a group of Roma. I stared at them. They looked like a bunch of gnomes. The Phuri Daj, Gyorgi sitting to her left, spoke to me:

 

“Jek beng žil pal dombeste. Vo corelel čhaj amaró. Aźutes amaró, voj fraij lel lesko giřa. Amen pomožinas...”  (A devil lives behind the hill. He has kidnapped on of our daughters. Help us, to free her out of his claws. We can help you…) Gyorgi translated.  
“Help? What help?”  (Aźutimos? Sósko aźutimos?) They changed a quick glance.  
“Pomožinas tu dumo.”  (We can help you with your shoulder.)   
“My shoulder…” I touched the wound. How could they know? But of course – they had seen me when they had helped me dressing that morning.  
“Žum Panés basalel lautjá pale…”  (You could play the violin again…)

The violin!

“But how… the tissue is damaged… I will never again…” (Sar… mas phařado… ka aváv pale…)  
“Aśav! Pomožinas tu, kana pomožines amé. Avés? Šaj tu arakhés murí chajorí?”  
(Stop! We can help you, if you help us. So, will you? Are you willing   
to find my daughter?)

Her eyes literally glowed in the dark, her deep voice made me shiver. 

“What must I do?”  (So trobúvar?)   
“Žavés pa derjáv.  Gonés pa droma an phuró limóra. Dičes znako. Žanav arniko čenes voj…”  
(Go over the river. Follow the path to the old cemetery. You will find signs… I know, you will be able to read them…) 

In the silence that followed I could hardly breathe. Again I heard the sweet voice of a violin singing. My hand searched for the flowers I had left behind on the cemetery almost three years ago…   
If the master could hear it too? Was a violin such a powerful instrument? I felt the longing in my heart, but then: I had been a consulting detective once… long ago. 

“I will. I will help you. Lead me to the place and I’ll do it.” Their dark eyes revealed their consent. They smiled and again I felt a shiver running up my spine. They were haunted creatures, like me. 

O, what had become of me? 

\--- 

A snow covered path led to an ancient graveyard with a small chapel on it. No Rom would ever dare to enter this place. They feared the Moroii and Strigoii, the living dead. They believed that any living human soul could become a vampire. 

Witches and warlocks who performed the dark arts were the most likely candidates. They were already seen as living vampires called the Moroii. They subsisted on blood, usually but not always from an animal, but not always. These beings were said to have sold their souls to the Evil One and when they died, they were denied paradise and made to wander the earth for all eternity. 

The males are said to have pale faces and are completely hairless, whereas the female ones are graced with full ruby red lips. They are said to be shape-shifters, able to turn into a bird, moth or any animal.   
They could be ‘killed’, but then they would turn into something even more sinister than before. 

When I’d reached the chapel, half decayed, snow on every stone, the roof halfway down, pale moon throwing a cross-like shadow on the pavement, I examined the ground very thoroughly.  
Although more snow had come down since the kidnapping there were a  number of foot prints still visible, two people had fought, a big, heavy man and a smaller person. A woman.

Red threads of a velvet fabric stuck between the wall and the hinge of a half-bent iron gate. Black hair and blood on the walls, on the floor. 

There was  so much blood in black pools near the altar, looking still wet. The blood was frozen, three days old, maybe four. 

I followed the half vanished foot prints to a crumbling stone wall built between the chapel and the forest. An owl screeched as it  hunted mice.

Or was it a Strigoii?

That’s the term for male vampires in Romania, which comes from the Latin ‘strix’ - screech owl. Females are called Strigoica. These were quite literally walking corpses. Unlike the Moroii, they are dead. 

There are a few reasons for one to become Strigoii upon death, which includes suicide, perjury, death by another vampire, being a seventh son, having been born with a caul, having a cat jump over one’s corpse, being stared at in the womb by a vampire…

…dying unmarried with an unrequited love... 

I shivered in the cold breeze coming from the open field behind the chapel. The magic this spot emanated was almost tangible. Would I become a Moroii myself one day? Dying unmarried with an unrequited love in my heart? 

‘Nonsense. There are no creatures like vampires in this world! Think rationally, use your brilliant brain. Gather data, find out the facts and don’t let these black thoughts overwhelm your observations!’ I scolded myself. ‘Go and find her! Go!’ 

Stretching myself to get rid of the tension I hurried into the forest. Fighting a devil to free a fair maiden was almost a desecration of the rationality of my former life. I had ever doubted God and all things spiritual, even after my long journey through Asia, India and the Orient. 

\--- 

I returned after fifty yards, looking up to the cloudless, star filled sky. It was too dark to follow any signs, and as long as no more snow fell it should be an easy task. Almost too easy.

Back at the fires the Roma stared at me as if I was already a ghost. They gave me food, something to drink and then, alone under the old oak tree, the Phuri Daj took my hands, pressing a small amulet into my palm.

It was a small stone with engravings on it, showing a barley corn with a snake winding around it; seven lines on top and one line underneath the snake in a silver frame. A leather band to wear it around the neck, black and smooth, attached with no visible knot. 

“Wear this when you meet him. Wear it! It protects your soul.”   


  
The small weight in my hand felt warm and familiar. I looked into her eyes, which were dark and full of malice. In hasty retreat I too several steps backward.

“Who are you?” I whispered.  
“A mighty friend.” She said. “This stone belongs to you. As you belong to _him_ …” She knew everything, had known everything, would know everything. 

Her mind reading my thoughts felt like a hand touching my scalp. I could feel her power stripping me bare to my very bones. What was left to lose? 

I could save neither myself or Watson. Wiping my tears away with clammy hands I gathered what strength I had left. Swaying, I turned my back on her, away from her, never to return again.

***


	6. But in Blood - part 6

**Part 6**

Her hand, small and white in mine, was still. She was still. Her breath coming and going, how many days she would have to live I dared not to think. I had left her, o God! I had left her. 

  
I returned to the tables again, into the warm and stinking atmosphere at [Mad Ryan’s](http://candle-beck.livejournal.com/141051.html), where I lost money without care, drank too much, smoked too much and in the morning hours, tired and in dire need of a bath and a few hours sleep I saw _him_ again. 

Or I thought it to be him, my dear boy. A slender, dark haired figure, standing with his back to me. He was wearing the boots Holmes had always worn when we had been on the hunt together, but turning around it was just a stable boy, or a cab driver. 

Every time I felt relieved from a burden, not to have him back, not to see him again, for what was I to do _if_ he would return? He was dead. Dead. 

Mary. I hurried home, just to find her still alive, her breath shallow and uneven, pale and fragile, pristine white face on white linen sheets. An angel in life and soon in heaven. 

*** 

The mare shifted from one leg to the other, I, sitting like an ancient knight on her back, fixed the city I had left over three years ago. Vienna. 

A heavy, dark hooded cloak and the warmth of the beast had lulled my senses. I had a revolver with me to protect myself against wolves and other more dangerous species. 

Colonel Moran had given up after I had left the European continent. I would have wagered Watson’s snake wood stick that he would never give up hunting me. Maybe he thought me dead anyway.

But then… what was left of me? My legs too weak to carry me by my own, the once sharp senses dulled and useless. I wasn’t a hunter anymore. Just a primitive creature seeking shelter in hay-filled barns, no longer able to beg for the food people gave me to calm their own conscience rather than my hunger. 

The devil had left signs for me. He wanted me to find him, obviously. In the crowded streets of Vienna I followed him, a tall, dark stranger, dressed as a gentleman, a cylinder, tinted glasses, finest silk and gloves, accompanied by a giant white dog.   


He was a noble creature, but even I with my diminished senses could feel that there was something evil, devilish about him. He walked in broad daylight, although the Roma had told me everything they knew about vampires.

These creatures can drink the blood of humans, but more often than not eat normal food instead. They are not benevolent by any means however. Not only do they suck out the life force, they spread disease. 

A vampire may also be a soul in revolt against the natural order of the universe, one who doesn't wish to relinquish his material body at death and thus returns to walk the earth. The incidents of vampire attacks increase as does an epidemic since anyone who is killed by one, becomes one.

So it’ll be then, I thought, my jaw set, forcing the mare into movement. One last great deed to free mankind from this villain, my own existence forfeit in the task. 

I sold the beast for a few coins, took the money and found a corner under a wooden stair where I laid my head to rest, my body too exhausted to notice the icy rain that replaced the snow for a short while, covering everything in a silver glaze.

I could have died that night, but some force denied me an easy way to pass from this world, it was _him_ who found me first. His preternatural senses must have led him to me. Against my own will my body followed his tall figure, descending into a dark narrow street. 

It was calm, not much snow had found its way down here. The cobblestones could still be seen, swept clean by the wind.   
The pistol was in my right hand, and I swaying on my feet. I tried to focus, my limbs frozen, ice in my hair, on my face. I heard a voice inside my head.

_“I know what you long for. I can set you free… Sherlock Holmessss.”_ Hissing like a snake his mind wound around my brain ~~,~~ I opened my mouth, but only white puffy clouds of breath came out.

“No!” I croaked.   
_ “Give in, surrender, you can not win, this game you cannot win.” _  
“Then I will die killing you!” 

Laughter sounded like an echo from wall to wall, pushing me with my back against the bricks.

“We all must die, Mr. Holmes. I died, but yet I still live. You died, Moriarty died, you will die as will your… friend… Dr. Watson.”

“No!” I cried, I flung myself at him. He vanished into thin air, torturing me further with his hellish laughter and thoughts of my dear Watson dying, alone, in grief over his wife and me.

“No!” The shot ricochet in the street, I felt his hands in my hair, baring my throat, fangs like that of a snake, glistening in the eerie light and then – a sharp pain. He bit me, I struggled, but soon a weakness overwhelmed me leaving me utterly helpless, still clutching at his clothes… my back to the wall, heart beating at a frantic pace, the creature near cold and without breath... I saw lights, green and golden, a fire work, I had to smile. Watson has always loved the fire work.

I closed my eyes, knowing that this time my death would be in vain. 

*** 

The glass shattered on the marble floor. 

I cringed and found myself kneeling in shards and Scotch, one hand on the table, the other gripping the shirt over my heart. 

_ ‘Holmes’ _ I thought. Something terrible must have happened! What can possibly happen to a dead man? He wasn’t dead! He was still alive, was he not? Taking a deep breath I stood up again, one trembling hand still on the table:

I lifted my chin. Mycroft! He had to see Mycroft. Immediately!

 

*** 

Snow in my hair, on my forehead, on my eyelids, in my mouth, snow covering my body like a thick blanket. 

I felt nothing, but I heard everything, smelled everything, _saw everything_.

Slowly, very slow, I heaved my torso up, the snow falling down from my back, from my shoulders, my head. Even with my eyes closed I could detect everything. A hundred thrumming sounds, every single one in its own rhythm, dripping, clicking, ringing noises surrounding me, the smell of snow and the soot underneath, horse dung, frozen, dirt, the smoke of a thousand fires in the air…

I stood up, my cloak like a shield, frozen sweat peeling off of me like scales. I touched my face – ice, I couldn’t feel the touch itself. What had happened? 

My mind scanned my body. Everything was intact and complete. I moved my fingers, plucking imaginary chords, playing a violin again. My shoulder didn’t hurt anymore. No pain, no hunger, no thirst! I felt like a divine being.

A human weapon, the weapon I had always dreamt to be. Accurate, efficient without making any sound. So what was wrong? The realisation hit me like a hammer: I wasn’t breathing any more. There was no heartbeat. I had become a vampire.

 


	7. But in Blood - part 7

**Part 7**

 

  
Tracking my ‘maker’ was so much easier now. I needed no sleep, no food. Travelling over great distances was a thing of a… ha! …heartbeat. I always had been good in hunting down thieves and villains. But now, with my newfound strength I could climb up walls ten feet high in an instant. 

My eyesight was brilliant even at night, I saw everything as I did in broad daylight. Speaking of daylight: first I went through it like any other man. But then… something changed.   
How to describe what it ‘felt’ like? There wasn’t a thing like _pain_ anymore. My body was a vessel now which was moved by sheer willpower; like water swirling in a stream, or a ray of sunlight shining brighter than the others. 

Glass floating in glass. Every time I looked into daylight my eyes felt like parchment, a milky quality around the edges blurring my vision. My skin, white and flawless again, seemed to be drawn tight around my bones. 

As a solution I avoided walking around at day and became what I was supposed to be: a creature of the night.

A longing, different from any human kind of longing, slowly crept to the surface: I wasn’t hungry – I was starving. There was no such thing as _morality, disgust_ or _sanity_ that ruled my new life. 

My first victim died fast and without pain. It was the Roma girl I had been sent out to save. 

I found my maker together with her, obscenely enough, in a church. 

 

  
He seemed surprised to see me there. Maybe he had thought me merely dead. 

It wasn’t fear that made him retreat into the night. Like a father taking care of his child he left me my first meal, a young woman, sixteen or seventeen years old, black hair, big eyes, dressed in silk and lace, obviously a present from her ‘lover’.

The scent of her blood already spilled made me shiver, weak. A longing in my breast I approached her, the combined sound of her tears falling and  of her fast beating heart too enticing not to obey. 

It was a spell, a dark spell, that couldn’t be denied. I couldn’t stop when I bared her throat and sank my teeth into the white flesh. 

Ah! Sweet sin, temptation! The coppery taste hit me like an orgasm! I curled around her, gripping her in a tight embrace, breaking several bones in her body and devouring the sweet essence I killed her without regret. 

Lying on my back, my stomach filled with warmth, there on the dusty floor of an empty cathedral with her lifeless body halfway across my own, I started to laugh. An empty, hollow sound. 

Tears running down my face; so I was still able to cry.

I fell into a stupor. Let them find me, sever my head or stake my heart, it didn’t matter anymore. I was in hell. I felt nothing. No remorse, no pity, no regret. Watson had been right: I wasn’t human anymore.

*** 

The door opened hitting the wall with a loud bang. Mycroft Holmes, as usual seated in his favourite armchair, looked up seemingly surprised.

Standing up he walked towards his uninvited guest, motioned him to come in. A servant closing the door quietly behind Watson disappeared as Mycroft signalled no more interruptions. 

Looking up and down Watson’s lean figure he noticed with one glance that the poor man was filled with grief, and anger.

“Dr. Watson. How good to see you again. How are you? Please, sit down.”  
“Where is he?”  
“Where is who?”  
“You know exactly of whom I speak, Holmes! Your brother! Where is he? He is not dead, is he? Tell me the truth!” 

Mycroft Holmes took a deep breath and with gentle force pressed the doctor into a cushioned chair. He fetched a glass filled with the finest scotch for each of them and sighing sank back into his own chair.

“My dear doctor, let me assure you…”  
“You can speak plain to me. No lame excuse! Yes, I saw him falling, yes, I know that there was no body found afterwards. That’s what makes it suspicious, don’t you think? They found Moriarty, but why not Sherlock too? He is still alive…” Pleading blue eyes regarded him questioningly, begging for a positive answer.

Mycroft sighed and like an old man he heaved himself out of his chair again, walked round the huge mahogany table: He seated himself opposite Watson and taking the doctor’s hands into his own flipper-like appendages looked him straight in the eyes.

“My dear Watson,” he felt Watson flinch, (curse you, Mycroft! Your brother used to call him that way!) he said: “No one can imagine what it means to you to have lost him, none of us can bear your burden. We searched a month for his body, but to no avail. And no, I assure you, he is no longer among the living.” 

Watson sobbed at his words, holding Mycroft’s hands tightly in his own.

“But… why… can I still… feel him? It’s like a string attached to my heart… He is still there… somewhere… out there. Can you not feel it too? You – his brother…”

Mycroft shook his head, sadness in his tear filled eyes. He felt like one of the [last stone lion](http://jcporter1.livejournal.com/2011/02/10/)s guarding the house.

“Then why do you still pay the rent for 221B Baker Street?” 

“I cannot bear the thought of someone else living in the place where my brother once roomed.”  
“Baker Street is his final resting place then?”  
“His disappearance from this world begrudging me of a grave, yes. I set everything into motion to make sure he isn’t dead, that he is still living somewhere out there. I miss him, Watson. I miss him every day. Now, that he is gone…” Mycroft swallowed heavily, taking a sip of his Scotch.

Watson saw the broad shoulders trembling. There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Then Mycroft looked at Watson again and asked:

“What exactly do you feel? When you say you can still feel him? I know you have loved him like a brother yourself. Maybe even more… How does it feel?”

Watson laughed nervously. He too took a large gulp from his glass, wiped his eyes and said:

“You know your brother, he wasn’t a superstitious man, he believed in God, he believed people to be honest, kind and good by nature. Everything unnatural, spiritual was suspect to him.   
You remember the case of Colonel Warburton’s madness, when in the end everything turned out to have been planned from the beginning? The toying with human feelings and exceptions and in the same way betraying their faith. Do you know what he said to me, back then? 'Watson, he said, there are no such things as ghosts, werewolves or vampires. Every thing descends from just but this one universe. Everything is in everything, what is made will be unmade one day, what is born has to die. But everything is a flow of energy, so everything is always connected with everything. It’s just transformation, never extinguished completely…' He thought God to be the ‘Mover of all Things’ in the first place… Does this sound strange?”  
“Not at all. It sounds like Sherlock. Pray continue.” 

“As for the soul, he said, some of them he believed to be very old and been in connection for an eternity before they even meet in ‘carnal’ form. I’m not a philosopher, Mycroft, I’m a doctor. But yet… feeling what I felt after his death… It feels so real… I know it, I simply _know_ that he is still alive…”

Tears fell into the doctor’s lap, hiding his eyes with one hand he cried silently. Mycroft stood still by his side, quietly, waiting for Watson to regain his composure.

“…he must be… for I can no longer live without him…”  
“You must, Watson. If not for yourself, you must live for him.”  
Watson sobbed freely now, he said:

“Mary is dying… My heart is already broken… When she is dead… and Sherlock is dead… what reason to live is there left for me?”

He could speak no more. Mycroft remained silent. With great care he gently pressed a second glass into Watson’s hand, setting the empty one on a silver tray sitting on a small table nearby.

Standing and moving behind Watson, he placed both hands  on the doctor’s shoulders.

“You know, I still talk to him too. In my mind. His answers to my questions are so…,” Mycroft chuckled, “…so very much him that I too have the feeling he is still alive. But we have to accept that we all are frail creatures, made to be blown out like a candle in the wind. If we all are souls swirling around each other in the immense space of the universe, and if it’s true what Sherlock thought it to be like, I am sure we will see him again one day and be re-united with him and all people we held dear and loved and still love… What did he say about love, Watson?”

“That there is no such thing. ‘Nothing lasts forever’, he’d said. He’d lived for the moment. Nothing about ‘eternal love’. He didn’t believe in ‘love’, Mycroft!”   
“O yes, he did. He loved you, Watson. To everyone with eyes to see it was evident. Everyone.”  
“No…” Watson’s startled expression made Mycroft smile. ‘Better not tell him you know of Brighton,’ he thought smirking.  

“Believe me, dear doctor – I’m an old man compared to you and my younger sibling. I’ve seen and heard much. Such love is not unheard of or uncommon. In fact… But let’s talk no more of such things. Your wife,” Mycroft hesitated, “…if there is anything I can do, please, feel free to ask. My brother’s best friend can always rely on my help.”

Watson, staring in awe up to him, took a deep breath, stood up and smiled a feeble smile. Tracing the outline of an ornament on the lush Persian carpet Mycroft could only wait, looking up again he noticed how handsome Dr. Watson was. Golden flecks in his hair, blue eyes shining with unshed tears, the full bottom lip…

“You’re too kind, Mr Holmes. But you are right I must go on. If not for myself, then for my patients, for my wife. As long as she dwells among us, I will be there for her. Thank you, thank you for your kind offer, thank you for everything.” 

They shook hands and reluctantly Watson went back to Cavendish Place while Mycroft returned to his work. Another deep sigh escaped his broad chest. 

‘Sherlock, Sherlock, Sherlock,’ he thought, ‘What have you done to him, what the hell have you done to me and to yourself?’ When Carruthers brought him a big cup with steaming hot cocoa he was almost his usual self again.

Almost.

***   



	8. But in Blood - part 8

**Part 8**

_ Paris, the most sensible honeymoon destination of all _ ...   
  
My words on the train when I had ‘saved’ Watson’s wife from a certain death brought by  Moriarty’s men. Now it meant nothing to me. 

I glanced down upon the city lights –  Louvre ,  Montmartre , the splendid Eiffel tower. Piece of art in a city full of art.

I climbed up  Notre Dame with no more than my bare hands and feet. It was a cold night, a black night, stars sparkling like diamonds on a purple blanket.   
With my new eyesight it was mortifying. Every star evaporated into a halo, the horizon a thin silver line.   
The wind spoke of hail and lightning, the scent pure and full of promises.

Even up here I could smell them – the weak and innocent, the gamblers, thieves and beggars, the humming sound of life, all the small inns, hotels and restaurants. All those fragile beings crammed together in small rooms, living wall to wall, their rambling, shouting, singing and loving. 

They thought themselves invincible. Who was I to judge them? I wasn’t even one of them anymore. 

                                                                   

Looking around I became aware of the gargoyles guarding this place.

Ugly looking creatures they were. How came that something so detestable watched over so much beauty as of that of a cathedral sanctified to the Virgin Mary?

Alas – only their outer appearance was horrible. What about me? I had killed a young girl only to satisfy my hunger! Wasn’t I as despicable as them? Now, as a vampire, I loathed myself as much I had been confident back when I had still been human. 

To be human again… 

A bell’s tolling both hurt and rescued me, the sun was rising. I hurried to find shelter, for I couldn’t stand the daylight anymore.  
Covering my sensitive ears I flew downstairs, the tomb of a Noble Frenchman provided an almost comfortable place where I could ‘rest’ and try to find something resembling solace.

What wicked mystic had done its work in me? My heart was no longer beating – but my thoughts were still in uproar, winding me up to unknown heights, but also to depths deeper than Reichenbach Falls. 

I felt myself falling down again, down, down, down… The last thing I saw were the gargoyles, smiling down on me almost mockingly. 

How I hated them, now that I was one of them, one of their kind. Made of stone, lifeless. I felt tears again running down my cheeks. This had to end. How? I didn’t know. My soul was lost. No one could save me anymore.

Crouching in the dark vault one last thought wavered through my mind. If no one could save me, I had to find my maker, end his life, turning whatever he was into ashes again. And then – end my own ‘life’.

I had to find him as soon as possible. Surrendering I became one with the darkness.   


  


****

  
I could feel my teeth, my fangs, unfamiliar, filling more space in my mouth than I was used to. They touched my lips, every move I made I was aware of the darkness surrounding me. Noises increased, light, even at night was unbearably bright. The wetness on the streets looked like blood to me. 

[Everything was drowned in shadows](http://mp3skull.com/mp3/isengard_unleashed.html). 

My tongue searched my fangs and all I could think of was how it must feel to quench this insatiable thirst on Watson’s throat. I wasn’t afraid of the dark outside – I was afraid of the dark within myself.

\--- 

I started chasing them. This time not for justice, or because it was right. I hunted them because I gave my hatred, my loathing, free rein. If there was such a thing as ‘joy’ in my being a vampire, then it was the moment, when they realized, that they were going to lose their lives. 

The moment I had them cornered, the stink of their ‘angst’ was in the air, the fear in their eyes, the surrender to the inevitable fate that awaited them. Some yielded immediately, some struggled through it until the end. 

But it was me who suffered. Even in death they still looked human. 

I roamed Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, leaving a trail of corpses behind me. Police forces never saw me, heard me, nor had the slightest chance to approach me; my reflexes too quick for their dull minds, my body to fast for their eyes to notice.

The decision to see my Watson one more time hung like a dark cloud over my head, shelter and threat at the same time.

What would he look like, now – after three years of my absence? What would he make of it, his friend, the famous consulting detective as a devil, a dark creature, an emotionless thing.

Thinking of him felt like a stake through my heart, that cold piece of inert flesh.  
O Watson! My dear man. Still I would do everything for you, everything, to keep harm out of your way. 

Standing on the pier, a last glance to the old continent, I turned my back to return home. To the place where I had been born, lived, suffered and enjoyed so many days together with him. My one and only, my friend. 

Something deep within me wept at the thought that it would be him who would end my state of being. If there was someone who could achieve it, it was Watson. 

Heading towards England I landed in Portsmouth on the fourteenth of November, determined to see Watson as soon as possible. Watson – I’m coming home!

***

The pen in my hand I stopped my desperate attempt to pin down my feelings at the moment I saw him fall.

The world had stopped spinning, opened a window in my soul and closed it immediately when I realized the horror, the inescapable fact, that he had been _falling… lost…_

My dear boy. How I wished we could have [swapped places](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xmNix0KBK4k) that day. For you, my dear Holmes, have always been and will always be the best and wisest man I’ve ever had the privilege to know… 

A shadow gliding through the room, I saw it in the corner of my eyes. An icy draft came up from behind, piercing a cold sharp needle between my shoulder blades. 

_ He is here! Here. At my house, my place. _

Alarmed I dropped the pin, and without delay left my desk and rushed out of my room to see Mary.

“Mary!” I called, before I entered her room. When I opened the door I first saw her and then my heart stopped beating.

“Holmes.” For it was him, a dark lump crouching at the bedside, bend over Mary’s body, _sucking at her throat! What the hell?_

“Holmes!” I yelled at him. As fast as lightning he retreated until the wall stopped him, where he, half hidden behind the dark curtain, crouched, glaring at me with red eyes. 

I could do nothing but stare. Was it really _him_?

Slowly I approached him, he stood and said nothing. Like the statue of a dark angel he simply _stood_ , moving neither hand nor foot. 

He wasn’t even breathing anymore. How pale he was. In the dim light he looked like a statue. 

“John…” Mary! In the brief moment I needed to look at her, Holmes was gone, the window wide open, the curtains moving in the gentle, icy breeze.

As fast as I could I closed it again, when I heard Mary saying:

“John. I begged him for it. I forgave him. Forgive him, too. He loves you… you love him… and I…” Death took her, before she could utter the next words, and I, still holding her hand, on my knees beside the bed, heard myself whispering:

“No, don’t. Don’t leave me... Mary…”

[B1]

****  
                                                                                                                     
I heard his unabashed sobbing, grieving for his wife. I felt a stirring in my soul, the grand Maker was plucking at the strings again. Wiping the blood from my lips I felt a small pang of regret. But then – by sacrificing her own life she had saved Watson’s. Biting my own hands I felt tears running down my face, collecting at my chin, dropping onto my chest. 

I left to hunt some black souls who deserved to die. It was no relief, my thoughts still at Cavendish Place, with her, with him.  
I would return in two days again. First I had to find Dracul and his slave, this… Jonathan Harker. 

  
\---  

 

I had considered briefly a visit to my brother, but the thought of him being presented with the thing I had become appalled me. 

I was sure to find the hiding place of my prey in no time. 

A vampire does not only nurture from blood alone. There is a connection between him and others of his kin, not in blood, a spiritual connection.

Whatever substance he had impregnated me with I didn’t know. But it wasn’t just ‘biological’, there was more in the making and becoming of a vampire.

A shifting on a spiritual level, a stirring of souls, a blur of minds. It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling. Music of another kind, for music in humans descends from the brain and goes directly through the heart without touching one’s mind. This was equal, but more atmospheric.

A much higher level of imagination, enhancing _every_ sensual capacity, everything alive had its own level of radiation, a halo of multi-coloured lights.

The most radiant were those of humans, of course. Flaring, like flames or dimmed like an ember in the hearth. I loved to see it fading. 

My victims died slowly, their light changing from an angry red to a golden hue, like a sunset in winter. Still bright and then turning to grey, a last red or orange flash – and it was over. Reduced to ash and earth again their souls were free to roam the spiritual world, to find another body, perhaps. Or remain there forever.

The Romani woman had been right: a vampire does not only feed from blood alone. I ‘felt’ their emotions, their heartbeat in my veins as I once had felt my own. Their emotions swept over me like a honey-coloured wave, sweet and sinful; all their hate, their love, their joy and grief mingled together like the spice scented air in India or Morocco, flavoured with the taste of their sweat and blood.

I confess – I wept when I took their lives, but I did not intend to leave another vampire behind. Wasn’t it enough that _he_ existed? _He_ would be my next victim.

\--- 

I approached them at the opera, Dracul and Harker, the white hound in their wake. They saw me, of that I made sure. Dracul was much more cunning that Harker could ever dream of being. The Count obviously had found a new home in England. One more reason to end his state of being.

They resided in a lair in Purfleet Street called Carfax Abbey, not far away from Belvedere on the opposite site of the Thames. Of course the Count wouldn’t roam anywhere else than the noblest part of town, where streets were crowded and victims easier to find. 

I observed them several nights, giving Watson the proper time to bury his wife, and myself to recall his dear face in my imagination again and again.

My heart wasn’t beating anymore, but the shell I was trapped in still remembered his touch… My dear, dear man. 

A woman crying murder further down the street distracted me; the few minutes I needed to see what was going on gave them the opportunity to vanish into the night.

I cursed without breath, my fangs slitting my lip. The stale scent of my last victim’s blood made me shiver and cringe. Too long since the last meal, too long since the last kill… 

With my preternatural senses I searched for Dracul and his companion.

They were gone. 

***   


* * *

  
[B1] Motoharu Goushi, Calcite

 

  



	9. But in Blood - part 9

**Part 9**

She was laid to rest under a young birch tree, my dear wife.   
  
When I returned the next day the earth was still frozen, hardly enough had been dug out to cover everything with the brown soil, mixed with ice and snow. Red roses I brought to her, red as her lips once had been, red as her blood dripping from Holmes’ chin…

My mind couldn’t grasp what I had seen in the candle light in Mary’s room.

Had it really been Holmes, my dear boy, the one whom I’d praised above all others; among the human beings living around me? 

He had been so thin, his skin unnaturally pale… why had he come back? Why had he sucked the life from Mary’s defenceless body? It must have been his ghost. But why was he haunting me now? What had I done to deserve this?

Burying my face in my hands I stood there for a long time. Snow began to fall in big, soft flakes, covering everything with white, a pure white making me think of the desert again.

How I got home I cannot tell. This time hell was covered with ice.

*** 

How peaceful he looked in his slumber, my dear man.  
Midnight was over, I crouched on the bed beside him, eyes fixed on him and him alone.  
He was still handsome, although terribly thin, almost like me. His heartbeat was a steady beat, a radiant pulse claiming me, enchanting me. I wanted to be at his side forever, for all eternity.

Cautiously I stretched out a trembling hand.

_‘[You shall not touch him!’](http://amaraal.livejournal.com/3664.html)_ How dare you, wretched creature that you are, that you are now!

I basked in the heat emanating from him; he was feverish, my dear Watson. 

Several hours he had stood like a statue in the cemetery, snow collecting on his broad shoulders, his hat, his face, in his moustache. His lips had been blue when finally his faithful maid had arrived in search of him, taking him by the hand, urging him into a cab, feeding him hot broth and tea.

How peaceful he looked, asleep, murmuring her name, my name. 

O Watson. What had become of us? You, a lonely man with a broken heart, I – a vampire.

*** 

I awoke with a start. He sat as if frozen, Holmes, my dear boy. It was cold in the room, the fire had gone out, frost on the windowpanes and my breath turning to ice on his face, in his brows. 

When he moved it was too quick for the eye to see, a dark shadow seemed to veil him from too close an observation, at least by human eyes.

This was a dream, wasn’t it? I was dreaming of him, again.

“Holmes?” I whispered, watching him standing near the window, the sun sending its first shy rays through a slit in the curtain. He vanished an instant later, and I, rubbing my eyes, stumbling out of bed to find out if it had been real or just a dream, felt the cold under my feet, creeping under my skin, into my heart. 

Sitting in my room a few hours later, a plate with toast, eggs and tea within reach, my army revolver in my lap, I played with the thought to follow them – Mary and Holmes. 

The typewriter yawned at me, an open mouth, ready to devour every word, every thought… but there wasn’t anything left to say. Only my heartbeat begging him to return. 

_ ‘Holmes come back, Holmes come back, please – come back!’  _

I lifted my eyes, hopefully. But no. Only the maid rummaging in the kitchen. I had promised her to eat a bowl of soup. I wasn’t hungry, I would never be hungry again… 

Burying my face in my hands I let the weapon drop. With a thump it hit the floor. Maybe that was the reason I didn’t notice _his_ appearance again. But there he stood – made of stone, a shadow in the shadows.

A cold draft made me shiver. His ghost had come back again to haunt me… and then he moved, came closer and closer. I dared not to twitch a finger, I swallowed, my hands clenching around the chair’s arms. 

He avoided the light, came to a halt behind me and… touched me. I closed my eyes, sat rigid, motionless, waiting for whatever would happen next. 

“There is a way.” _His_ voice!   
“How?”  
“It’s painful and will cost you much.”

“I don’t care. I have nothing to lose. I’m alone now. Holmes…”  Turning in my chair I looked up at him.

Slowly I stood, face to face with him, like a marionette on strings I lifted my hand to touch his cheek, he retreated. I offered a hand, my left, he took it with his right,  with his fingers only and I drew him with me into the light. 

“Does it hurt?” Holmes shook his head.   
“It stings. Like a razorblade drawn over taut skin. Like a sunburn, a bit more.” He was shaking, eyes closed, his hair an unruly, black mass.  
“Open your eyes, please?”  
“No. Watson! No… I don’t dare, but I can see you with my eyes closed… I see you… always…” A smile, wary and gentle. 

He retreated into the security of the shadows again, still holding my hand. He was shaking and I hurried to shield him with my own body from the sun.

“Holmes…” I whisper, “…my dear, poor Holmes. How could this happen?”  
“It happened, because I let it happen, Watson.” A deep sigh. “This time I met a superior opponent…” After a long pause he said:  
“Near Bishops Wood, there’s a gypsy camp. You know Simza. Ask her, she knows.”

And saying so he disappeared. 

The next morning I left for Hampstead, heading north towards Bishops Wood.

***

The Occult Pair they call it. Two strangers, a man and a woman, coming together just one time in their life, to celebrate the ‘Holy Wedding’, a ceremony which enhances their spirituality and clairvoyance.

Seven holy artefacts they would need to gather first: a new wax candle, hawthorn, common gorse, a cock’s feathers, two doves, a basket with bread, a glass of wine.

Normally. 

She is lying on top without touching the earth, he ‘ ~~‚~~ sucks’ the life-force out of the earth.  
Normally.

But this time it was something more, something different, much more sinister than anything even the gypsies had heard of.

Two male beings depending on each other. A bond, not yet in blood, but what? Love? Watson felt his hands shaking. He was just one part of that game, a feeble part. 

He looked into Simza’s black eyes.

“What will happen?”  
“I don’t know. It is dangerous. If you fail, you both do not return.”   
Watson nodded unperturbed.  
“What will I need?”

White heather, your own blood, your lover’s hair… Possibly. A wry smile on his sad face he had left the camp again. 

New moon it had to be. The Phuri Rjat – the ‘Heavy Night’. He knew – Holmes would be there. He still couldn’t feel his heartbeat… only the heavy beating of his own. 

If it would have enough strength to bring someone back from the dead?

*** 

Mycroft couldn’t breathe, but he had to  finally, breaking the spell and staring at the dark figure just far enough away to be out of reach.

“Sherlock…” he whispered and felt his knees going weak. “Is it really you, brother?”   
“Yes, Mycroft. It is me, or what has become of me… No! Stay away! I will hurt you!”   
“Sherlock, it is true then? A vampire… _He_ made you one of his minions?”  
“No. Yes, no. He made me into one of _them_ , but I’m not his minion, never will be. That’s why I am here Mycroft. If I survive this, you have to make sure… you have to make sure that _he_ doesn’t, do you understand? Or else he will raise an army against all humankind and darkness and fear will reign.  
I will kill him, and then you have to make sure that I will not be the last one, do you hear me, Mycroft?” 

Mycroft felt the blood drain from his face, his limbs shaking, sinking down onto his chair he said:

“You mean, you…”  
“A holy bullet can do it. I know you can do it, Mycroft. If not you, who else? Good bye!” 

And saying so he left not only a sobbing brother behind him, but also a man who would make sure to end the life of one Sherlock Holmes.

\--- 

I hurried to see Watson. The pain in my heart resembled faintly the feelings I once had had for my brother. But I had to make sure. My mind wasn’t to be trusted anymore. My thirst became greater from victim to victim, night after night my longing for blood got more insistent, I couldn’t stay hungry anymore.

The doctor wasn’t at home. I could have followed his scent, but I went the opposite direction, searching for Dracul and his mate.

Dark clouds hung above the city, dull bells chimed, fog was coming up. The weather as bleak as my chances to be human again. I had to find them soon. I knew Dracul was aware of Watson and that he was a worse enemy than  was I. 

There also was another fellow, a doctor too, from the Netherlands, van Helsing. It seems that one of them, an American, had been in love with that Roma girl I was so unfortunate as to have killed in my first attempt to quench my thirst. 

Good. They thought it had been Dracul himself, which was right in a way. They did a great job sterilising the count’s resting places which I had found that there had been more than one all over London. 

They had found the house in Purfleet rather quickly, and desecrated the boxes there. 

I for my part had found out that a tomb in a cemetery was more than enough to find a secure place to spent the hours of daylight. 

If there was need to hide I preferred to vanish in the sewer, the second city underneath London; the stinking canals filled with excrement and the trash the oh so civilized world wanted to get rid of. Rats and insects lived here, in every corner and crevice they occupied it  like a second empire built on mouldy bread and corpses… 

Yes, the corpses swimming on their back in the slimy water, with rat nests in their hair and eyeless snakes around their necks.

It was dark here, even at day. What else could a vampire wish for?

\--- 

I saw Mycroft leaving the house, Carruthers in tow. He had grown fond of his private secretary, who so selflessly had offered me his right arm to drink the blood from his veins directly. He wouldn’t tell my brother, I was sure.

For he was as devoted in his love as I was with my Watson. They soon would have the bullets. O brother mine. I wished, I could have spared you that.

Everything. 

*** 

At the cemetery again. The snow was thawing, the wetness dripping from the branches, onto my shoulders, onto my hat. A few snow drop flowers had found their way through the white crystals already, looking all the more fragile in their early bloom. I let my eyes wander, searching for white heather. 

I doubted to find such a rare plant here, but then I saw a few twigs under the bigger branches of a young hazelnut tree. I broke them off, enough for the task at hand. 

They were shaking when I wrapped them into a white kerchief. I covered my mouth with my gloved hand when I took a last glance over Mary’s grave.

A bird gave a loud warning sound and fled making the snow fall down from the birch tree like a small silvery waterfall. It made me smile. Mary would have loved it, but there was no more love for her in my heart now.

All the way back I thought of _his_ black hair, wet from the rain, curling under his hat. I looked up to the sky, the sun was lurking through the clouds. It would be warm, well, a bit, as it had been once in Brighton.

Weird I had to think of that day again, and now. For his hair had been wet after our love making, and I had felt it on my face, like the touch of a  brush, gentle and soft… Holmes, I want you back!

\--- 

The next day found me stumbling over the same fold in Mycroft’s office carpet again as I had done when? A week ago? I had lost count of the hours since I had lost the love of my life…  
Forlorn I sat in that deep, comfortable chair, when a warm hand touched my shoulder.

“Dr Watson. Always good to see you again.” I flinched. That phrase belonged to my boy, not to him, as mighty a brother as he was!   
“I beg your pardon, Dr Watson. May I express my empathy for your… recent loss?”  
“Can I…” My voice broke. “Can I have a drink, please.”   
“Of course, of course…” Mycroft mumbled. A minute later I held a glass of Scotch in my hand. I cleared my throat.  
“I… I saw him. He is... still alive. And you knew it. You knew it the whole time, Mycroft.”

Mycroft nodded, his lips pursed, heavy lids hooding his eyes, a strand of his hair falling over his face.

“Yes, I did. I beg your pardon, but I couldn’t! I couldn’t tell you! I thought it best not to…”

“What? Not to tell me the truth? Because I am only his friend and so I have no right to be trusted? Then you know what also happened to him, Mycroft? And that I, maybe, I am the only one who can save his soul… bring him back even…?”

Mycroft took my hand and let two silver bullets drop into my palm. I swallowed, looking up at him, into his brown eyes - eyes so like his brother’s.

“I know.” He said simply and I had to swallow again. “He begged me, to make sure… Watson! Make sure, if you can not save him, if you have to end his life… end it quickly.” He turned and faced the fireplace, hands clenching at his sides, his portly figure shaking.

Silently I left my place, let the bullets slip into my pocket and said:

“You can rely on me, Mycroft. Good evening.”

On my way out I came across Caruthers. The man looked haunted and grey. He avoided my gaze, and I left without further ado.

*** 

Waiting for him in his sleeping room, I let the amulet slip from my left into my right hand. I could find him wherever he would go… A faint trace of warmth was still in my body. Poor Thaddeus, poor Mycroft. Even Stanley had offered me his blood. I had refrained. The dear, old fellow, so fragile, so precious. 

I heard him before he reached the house, his heartbeat a beacon in the darkness of my existence. He entered the room, his steps like that of an old man. My dear Watson! 

He lit the fire, stoked it, the room soon became warm, the flames creating a golden glow around Watson’s beloved form. He then saw me and froze, staring at me, his mien changing from frightened to unbelieving then finally into a faint smile.

“Holmes,” he whispered. This one word nearly made me cry. Maybe I wasn’t breathing anymore, but my heart felt like it was on fire, the stake of his former love driven through it, impaled, longing for it.  
“Watson, always good to see you…” I said toneless.  
“Holmes!” 

A second later I was in his arms, writhing helplessly under his ministrations, his kisses, burning stigmata on my cold skin. He ripped my already torn clothes apart, laid bare my skin, my bones, nerves, his touch feeding me with his warmth, his scent, his being.

“Watson, you will be my saviour and I will be your downfall.”*

“So be it!” 

I flipped him on his back and then, then… tracing a line down from his shoulder, over a vein in his arm, I drank his blood from a vessel in his elbow. Our eyes met, I closed mine, my eyelashes tickling his skin, he shivered and my fangs pierced his flesh.

My beloved man! Your blood, finally! It pulsed with the rhythm of his heart, red, sweet, rich. Every strain an eruption of life against my lapping tongue; I hissed through clenched teeth, he closed his arms around my head, crying, drawing me closer, drawing me near. 

It was like drowning, a gentle swaying like drifting on an ocean of rainbow coloured lights… His heart told me _I love you I love you I love you_ in an all too familiar pattern. I wept, he stroked my hair, my ears, face.

“To be human again, Watson… human…” My voice like a faint scent in the dark. One with the shadows, black in black, Watson could only see my eyes and fangs shining in the dim moon light.

“How?” He asked.   
“Not the blood, my dear fellow. Only your love can save me, and return me, get me out of the dark and give me back to the light.” Watson said nothing, just cradled my lithe form in his arms. He nodded, his face solemn, his heartbeat steady and fast.

“Then I will love you, Holmes. This time no one will ever separate us again.” My thumb stroked over the noble eyebrow of my dear doctor.  
“You have always been a saint, Watson.”  
“Holmes!” He kissed me and for the first time in my vampire life I felt loved.

***   
  



	10. But in Blood - part 10 and final part.

**Part 10 - Final**

Van Helsing and his men had followed them all over London – Dracul and his servant, that  dark-haired creature named Harker, Jonathan Harker.    
  
Once a loyal employee, he was now under the spell of the evil creature from the East – neither living nor dead. Van Helsing cursed at how things had developed since his arrival. No one had had a clue as to what to do with the coffins and the large boxes filled with earth. A lot of money had changed hands, obviously, and gold can change so many things… 

There were, Smollet had said, six in the cartload which he took from Carfax and left at 197 Chicksand Street, Mile End New Town, and another six which he deposited at Jamaica Lane, Bermondsey.

If  the Count meant to scatter these ghastly refuges of his over London, then these places were chosen as the first of delivery, so that later he might distribute more fully. 

The systematic manner in which this was done made van Helsing think that he could not mean to confine himself to two sides of London. 

He was now fixed on the far east on the northern shore, on the east of the southern shore, and on the south. The north and west were surely never meant to be left out of his diabolical scheme, let alone the City itself and the very heart of  fashionable London in the south-west and west.

And, Smollet had admitted, that there had been more coffins than the ones they had already found and destroyed.

Purfleet at night was a ghastly , eerie place to be. The omnipresent fog dimmed the few gas lights to mere spots in the night, the cobblestones were wet and slippery. 

“ _In manus tuas, Domine_!” van Helsing shouted, crossing himself as he passed over the threshold. Then they closed the door behind them, they all lit their lamps and proceeded on their search.   
They were van Helsing himself, his trustworthy friend Dr John Seward from the Asylum, Quincey Morris, an American adventurer who was still in grief about the loss of his beloved Roma girl Emsara, whom he had met on the continent and lost to the abominable creature they were hunting now. With them was also Thomas Snelling, the worker from the zoo, who still hoped to find the wolf Berserker, who had escaped several weeks ago. 

Tiptoeing they ventured through the dark empty house. Thick layers of dust and spider webs hanging in rags from the leverage of dust from the walls and curtains made them sneeze and cough.

“This way?” Van Helsing asked Seward, who held a map in his hand and nodded. Finally they stopped in front of an old oaken door with iron bands. A foul odour seemed to seep through the gaps. Involuntarily they held their breath, swallowing, Quincey producing a handkerchief from his pocket, putting it over his nose and mouth.

“Gentleman, this is the last of his refuges. If we stop here and now he will be able to come back. Come on! Let’s go!“ 

It was evident that the Count was not at present in the house, and they proceeded to search for any of his effects. 

There were title deeds of the Piccadilly house in a great bundle, deeds of the purchase of the houses at Mile End and Bermondsey, notepaper, envelopes, and pens and ink. All were covered up in thin wrapping paper to keep them from the dust. 

There were also a clothes brush, a brush and comb, and a jug and basin.  
The latter contained dirty water which was reddened as if with blood. Last of all was a little heap of keys of all sorts and sizes, probably those belonging to the other houses. 

When they had examined this last find, Dr Seward and Quincey Morris took with them the keys. They found another four boxes, desecrated them and satisfied shook hands.

When they left van Helsing felt ~~,~~ as if someone had been watching them. A shadow flittered across the wall, then disappeared.

Silently, still on constant alert, he retreated, slowly closing the door behind them, locking it and turning to his friends he said:

“Now the only thing left is to trust in God.” 

***   


Dracul wasn’t a fool. He had long since abandoned this house and all the others. He had taken his obedient right hand man with him, Jonathan Harker, followed by the wolf. 

I had to hurry. Watson was in danger as long as these creatures were on the run. I was aware that van Helsing had spotted me, but then – this man and his friends could be of help in destroying my maker, and all other of his kin. 

Heading north again I hoped Watson had found the time to gather all necessary items to either rescue or kill me.

***  

A nightingale sang its sad song when I arrived at the opening Simza had shown me. A look up to the moonless sky assured me that this was the perfect place, the perfect night to bring my dear Holmes back. I didn’t dare to ponder over anything beyond that. 

What if… 

The revolver in my pocket felt heavier than usual, the silver bullets in it would kill someone this night. 

Dressed in military attire, a heavy black cloak around my shoulders, I trotted down to the spot where thick moss formed an oval place, calling me to lay down with open arms and open heart to welcome what? My love? Or would the evil spirit in him take over and kill first me then him too? 

The night was dark and cold. It was the end of April, the warmth of the spring slowly replacing the winter’s cold grip. Taking in the atmosphere I searched for him, Holmes, my friend, my love. Where are thou?

A wolf howled not far away. My heart was racing. Where was it? And why here? Why now?

 

“Watson.” As if sprung from the ground he stood in front of me.

“Holmes…” I let out a deep breath. “Thank God! You are here. We are here, finally.”  
“Yes, Watson. We must hurry. I fear they followed me... he followed me…”

He took me by the arm and dragged me into nearby bushes, sheltering us from view. 

“Prepare everything. I will examine the surrounding once more. Don’t search for me. I will come to you.” And saying so he disappeared into the night again. 

I fetched the candle from my pocket, the feathers, a bunch of white heather and – Holmes’ and my blood. I held the test tube with two fingers, the liquid black against the light. Wait? Light? 

A gypsy woman came running to me carrying a torch. It was Simza, her long hair floating behind her like a banner.

“He’s here. The devil. Be careful! We will search for him. You will need Holmes! God with you!” And saying so she gave me an amulet, a stone with an engraving I could rather feel than see.

“Wait! What can I do?” 

“Watch out, love him.” I could say no more. The place was surrounded by gypsies, the wolf was howling again and then everything happened within a second. 

A black figure threw itself at me, made me fall onto my back. I hissed, clenched my teeth when something heavy pinned me to the ground. I groaned, I could feel cold fingers around my neck, ripping my clothes apart, lips searching for the right spot… a cry! Was it mine or the creature’s? 

Suddenly everything went black. Ashes swirling behind my eyelids or was it real? The cry ceased and I had the scent of fire and coal in my nostrils, the taste of smoke and grass. There was blood. I coughed, bracing both arms against the ground I tried to gather my senses. 

A layer of black dirt covered my clothes, my face and hair. When I looked at my hands, the dark smear was everywhere. The amulet felt hot on my skin. When I touched it, it emitted a small electrical shock, making me hitch into a couple of hiccups.   
It had destroyed the corporeal remains of Jonathan Harker. I blinked. I was insane, this was just a weird dream. 

Another unearthly sound came from the northern side of the opening. Holmes besting his maker.

*** 

He choked me, clawed at me, sharp nails slicing my flesh. Like two wild beasts we tore at each other. 

He was strong, he was furious, he was as superior as he had been back in Vienna. He would kill me. I smelled the disgusting stench emanating from him, his rage like thundering canons on a great battle ship in action. There was fire in his eyes. How to escape this time I had no idea. 

I gave in. The stars twinkling above would be last thing I would be able to see with my immortal eyes. I blinked tears away. His power was greater than mine.

He who made me would also kill me. There was so much white, a salt lake, a golden desert under the seering sun… a shot echoing in the night, and then… a gentle touch on my cheek, my lips. The radiant pulse embracing me, catching me, plucking me from the earth, drawing me into strong arms.

The smell, I knew this scent…

“Watson…” I whispered. And the gentle brush of a moustache swept over my face. 

“I’m here. Holmes, you fool.” I let him carry me, settling me down on the green mossy pillow, where we shed our clothes mutually and then… then… 

O Watson!

*** 

Naked as the day we were born I gathered him in my arms. Holmes, my dear Holmes. He sat on top of me, taking first my left, then my right hand, lacing fingers with me. I was shaking with both fear and anticipation. Hard and ready I felt his cold flesh on mine, his hard muscles clenching, unclenching, trying to find the right position, the perfect connection.

Nothing of his body touched the ground, as was necessary. 

Ether in our lungs, eyes wide open, I felt the stars explode. I, we, were small parts of even smaller parts, shards of shards, splinters of splinters. 

Everything was spinning… I was light-headed, I could hardly breathe anymore and then…

Imploding pieces drawn together, fitting together, white, blue, black, lightning, ebb and tide coming together – everything became one -

I became as one with the one and only ever meant to be part of me, ever had been, ever will be – it, he, him, the horned, the dark shadow, the beloved, my man – Holmes!

The air around us was laden with magic, glowing, there was fog around us, sheltering us. 

I closed my eyes and when I opened them again, I felt his weight. He was warm, his eyes were closed, he was breathing! I could feel his heartbeat! He was alive! He was human again. 

 

*** 

A thud of something heavy woke me up. I was totally exhausted, my breath came in small, heavy gasps. I knew, where I was. I knew, who I was, what I had become once more: an ordinary human being.

Still shaking I lifted my head, staring into those blue stars of my soul mate – my beloved man.

“Watson.” Was all I could say. What else was there to say? He smiled his adorable smile, white teeth under neatly trimmed moustache.

“Holmes. Let’s go home. I’m cold.”

“So am I, Watson.  So am I.”

Slowly, with shaking hands, we gathered our belongings, each helping the other back into his clothes. 

Watson’s cloak was big enough to protect us both from the night and the drizzly rain, we were fortunate enough to be picked up by a cab heading our direction. The driver set us down near the cemetery gate, where Mary had found her final resting place. 

I could feel Watson’s hands in my hair, admiringly fondling the curls.

“Holmes...” He breathed into my face, and I burst into a fit of giggles. I dragged him with me, happy to be alive again, happy to be with him. He started humming and we danced, silently.  
Then he kissed me, and his kisses melted the last remnants of ice from my soul.

“Look where we stand, Watson.”   
“Holmes!” Startled my dear man drew me from the grave we accidentally had tripped up on.  
“Not on Mary’s grave, dear…”  
“Why not? She saved us both, gave her life… She had suffered so much… You have suffered so much… for me…” Tears sprung up in my eyes, soaked up by the cloak’s fabric.

“Ssshh, Holmes. It’s over, it’s all over, my dear boy…”   
“Let’s go home, Watson.”  
“Home.” 

But neither of us moved away from the spot, where we were still swaying in a dance, holding each other.

“Watson?”  
“Hm?”  
“Who taught you how to dance?”  
“You did.” He simply said, and I could feel his grin in my heart.

*** 

When we woke up the next day, a beam of sunlight made my love’s eyes sparkle. I know we are one, I and Holmes. 

His smile reflected my thought, and he said:

“We are one.”  
“We are.”  
“How do you know?”  
“You killed my wife.” 

And to that Holmes could just smile.

 

 

The End

______________________________________

Links: Tinzelda’s ‘The Birthday Gift’ - <http://tinzelda.livejournal.com/7012.html#t309348>

solitary_xynic’s vid: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xmNix0KBK4k](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xmNix0KBK4k)

Candle_beck’s ‘The Narrator’:   
<http://candle-beck.livejournal.com/141051.html>

amaraal – imagine:   
<http://amaraal.livejournal.com/3664.html>

 

  
  
  


  
A/N: Yes, a part is shamelessly stolen from Stoker’s ‘Dracula’.  Forgive me. The pic above is somewhere on HW09, but I’m too lazy to search for it…

That’s it so far. Let me know what you think and enjoy the links.

  



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